U.S. Says Push for Legal Limits on Carbon Emissions Deadlocked

By Ben Sills and Catherine Airlie -
Jun 17, 2011

The push to extend legal
restrictions on carbon emissions is deadlocked, threatening the
United Nations climate program based around the Kyoto Protocol,
said the head of the U.S. delegation at talks in Germany.

Jonathan Pershing, the State Department envoy at the
meeting in Bonn, said China and India are refusing to take on
legally binding commitments that the U.S. says are a condition
for giving its own emissions targets legal force.

“We are not prepared to have a legal agreement that would
apply to us but not to other major economies,” Pershing said.
“At this point in time, all major economies have not indicated
that they are willing to do that.”

The standoff risks unraveling the international effort to
limit climate change that has been pieced together through 20
years of negotiations. Japan, Russia and Canada have already
said they won’t extend their existing commitments once the
current Kyoto limits expire in 2012. The European Union said
China isn’t offering enough to justify more concessions.

This meeting of officials and civil servants is aimed at
preparing the agenda for the annual climate talks attended by
ministers, which will start in November in Durban, South Africa.

“It’s very, very hard to see what the meat on the deal is
going to be,” Juergen Lefevere, acting head of the EU
delegation, said today in Bonn. “It’s a question we’ve been
asking at every single meeting and we’re not getting a response
to the question.”

The U.S. and China, which are negotiating climate
commitments outside the 1997 Kyoto treaty, haven’t provided
enough information on the climate obligations they will accept
to allow the EU to make a second commitment under Kyoto,
Lefevere said in an interview.

Developing nations and UN officials are pressuring the EU
to commit to further limits on its carbon emissions to sustain
the momentum of the international effort. Christiana Figueres,
the UN envoy leading the talks, said extending the Kyoto curbs
was a key objective for Durban.

“Resolving the future of the Kyoto Protocol is an
essential task this year and will require high-level political
guidance,” Figueres said at a news conference. The treaty
“remains fundamental and critical.”

Kyoto’s Successor

The EU is withholding its pledge for a second commitment
under the Kyoto Protocol to try and leverage other major
emitters such as the U.S., China and Japan to join a broader
agreement, said Marjo Nummelin, a negotiator with the Finnish
delegation.

“If it’s just the EU, Switzerland and Norway, then that is
no way to bring about a solution,” Nummelin said in an
interview in Bonn. Still, “the EU takes its role at the
political negotiations quite seriously.”

The EU is the last major economic bloc still open to
extending the greenhouse-gas limits set out in the Kyoto treaty
in 1997. The U.S. never ratified it. China, the world’s largest
emitter, was given no cap under the agreement because it is a
developing economy.

“We need to have a second commitment period, that’s the
No. 1 priority,” Collin Beck, the Solomon Islands ambassador to
the UN, said in an interview. “That is where the momentum is
being built.”

Negotiators this week have made progress toward extending
carbon trading mechanisms and building institutions to help
developing countries adapt to changes in the climate. Last week,
work was marred by arguments over the agenda for the meeting.

‘Uneven’ Progress

“While progress is still uneven, parties have returned to
constructive talks and have been moving forward step by step,”
said Tasneem Essop of the World Wildlife Fund, a pressure group
observing the talks. “What we need now is a shift into a higher
gear and a resolution of the difficult issues.”

A coalition of 130 developing nations including China last
week said that extending the Kyoto Protocol should be the
priority for Durban.

Under Kyoto’s first enforcement period, 35 nations and the
EU committed to reduce emissions by a collective 5.2 percent
from 1990 levels by 2012. Figueres said last week that a gap is
likely between the first and second round of commitments because
of the lag time needed to amend the Kyoto Protocol and ratify it
in all member-nations.

‘Political Issues’

“On the big political issues such as the legal form and a
second Kyoto commitment period, I don’t think a lot of progress
has been made,” Nummelin said. “The pressure is on the EU.”

Delegates are aiming to arrange an additional meeting in
September or October, though Figueres said last week the UN must
raise funds from member nations to pay for it. The U.S. has
pledged to help fund the gathering, Pershing said.

The meeting may cost about $7 million, Alden Meyer, an
observer from the Union of Concerned Scientists, estimated at a
press conference today.

Delegates this year will also aim to decide on ways to
extend the legal framework to countries outside the protocol,
she said, citing consultations by the South African officials
who will host the meeting.

Officials also aim to establish a committee to help
countries adapt to a changing climate, design a green climate
fund that will manage some of the $100 billion a year that rich
countries have pledged to mobilize by 2020 and identify sources
of that funding, Figueres said.